War of 1812 Primary Source Packet
Madison Becomes President
Digital History ID 211
Author: John Adams
Date:1809
Annotation:
Distressed by the embargo's failure, Jefferson looked forward to his retirement from
the presidency. "Never," he wrote, "did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel
such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power."
The problem of American neutrality now fell to Jefferson's hand-picked successor,
James Madison. A quiet and scholarly man, who secretly suffered from epilepsy, "the
Father of the Constitution" brought a keen intellect and wealth of experience to the
presidency. As Jefferson's Secretary of State, he had kept the United States out of
the Napoleonic wars and was committed to using economic coercion to force Britain
and France to respect America's neutral rights. In this letter, former President Adams
notes Madison's ascension to the presidency.
Document:
Jefferson expired and Madison came to Life last night...I pity poor Madison. He
comes to the helm in such a storm as I have seen in the Gul[f] Stream, or rather
such as I had to encounter in the Government in 1797. Mine was the worst however,
because he has a great Majority of the officers and Men attached to him
Survival Strategies
Digital History ID 662
Author: Tecumseh
Date:1810
Annotation: Told by Governor Harrison to place his faith in the good intentions of
the United States, Tecumseh offers a bitter retort. He calls on Native Americans to
revitalize their societies so that they can regain life as a unified people and put an
end to legalized land grabs.
Document: You wish to prevent the Indians from doing as we wish them, to unite
and let them consider their lands as the common property of the whole. You take the
tribes aside and advise them not to come into this measure.... You want by your
distinctions of Indian tribes, in allotting to each a particular, to make them war with
each other. You never see an Indian endeavor to make the white people do this. You
are continually driving the red people, when at last you will drive them onto the
great lake, where they can neither stand nor work.
Since my residence at Tippecanoe, we have endeavored to leave all distinctions, to
destroy village chiefs, by whom all mischiefs are done. It is they who sell the land to
the Americans. Brother, this land that was sold, and the goods that was given for it,
was only done by a few.... In the future we are prepared to punish those who
propose to sell land to the Americans. If you continue to purchase them, it will make
war among the different tribes, and at last I do not know what will be the
consequences among the white people. Brother, I wish you would take pity on the
red people and do as I have requested. If you will not give up the land and do cross
the boundary of our present settlement, it will be very hard, and produce great
trouble between us.
The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red men to unite in claiming a
common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be now--for it was
never divided, but belongs to all. No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other,
much less to strangers.... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well
as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them for all the use of his children?
How can we have confidence in the white people?
When Jesus Christ came upon the earth you killed Him and nailed Him to the cross.
You thought He was dead and you were mistaken....
Survival Strategies
Digital History ID 663
Author: Tecumseh
Date:1811
Annotation: Tecumseh calls on his native brethren to join together to resist white
encroachments on their lands.
Document: Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican,
the Pocanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the
avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.... Will we
let ourselves be destroyed in our turn, without making an effort worthy of our race?
Shall we, without a struggle, give up our homes, our lands, bequeathed to us by the
Great Spirit? The graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us?...I
know you will say with me, Never! Never!
Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws, in false security and delusive
hopes....Will not the bones of our dead be plowed up, and their graves turned into
plowed fields?
Dissent Against the War of 1812
Digital History ID 260
Author: J.C. Jones
Date:1812
Annotation:
Although Congress voted strongly in favor of war, the country entered the conflict
deeply divided. Many New Englanders were appalled by the thought of becoming
allies of Napoleon and of the nation that had indulged in the Reign of Terror. Not only
would many New Englanders refuse to subscribe to war loans, but some merchants
actually shipped provisions that Britain needed to support its army. In the following
selection, a committee of citizens in Boston denounces the drift toward war.
Document:
THE Committee appointed by the Town of Boston to take into consideration the
present alarming state of our public affairs, and report what measures in their
opinion it is proper for the Town to adopt, at this momentous crisis,
RESPECTFULLY REPORT,
THAT...while the temper and views of the national administration are intent upon
war, an expression of the sense of this Town, will, of itself, be quite ineffectual,
either to avert this deplorable calamity, or to accelerate a return of peace. But
believing, as we do, that an immense majority of the people are invincibly averse
from a conflict equally unnecessary, and menacing ruin to themselves and their
posterity; convinced, as we are, that the event will overwhelm them with
astonishment and dismay; we cannot but trust that a general expression of the voice
of the people would satisfy Congress that those of their Representatives who have
voted in favor of war, have not truly represented the wishes of their constituents;
and thus arrest the tendency of their measures to this extremity.
But should this be hopeless, it will enable the people to combine their operations in
order to produce, by constitutional means, a change of men and measures, and
rescue the Nation from ruin. From the commencement of the system of commercial
restrictions, the Inhabitants of this Town (inferior we trust to none in ardent
patriotism and attachment to the Union) have appeared to render themselves
obnoxious to the national administration, and its partisans in this State, by their
foresight and predictions of the utter inefficacy, destructive operation, and ultimate
tendency of this unprecedented and visionary scheme. They could discern in it
nothing but a deliberate sacrifice of their best interests, and a conformity to the
views of France, with whose system it cooperates, and whose approbation it
receives; and hostility to Britain, whose interests it wounds, and whose resentment it
was calculated to excite. It was for the national government to determine, whether
the decrees and aggressions of the belligerent powers (which commenced with the
European war) would probably demand of the national honor, retaliation and
resistance; or whether the peculiar character of the war, and relative situation of our
country, would justify a suspension of our resentment, and an adherence to our
pacific policy. In the one case, the years which have elapsed should have been
occupied in warlike preparations, which now have been imposing and formidable.
In the other event, it was the dictate of sound policy, to protest against the
predatory systems which have annoyed our commerce, and still to have pursued it
by all practicable means. But government has adopted neither of these courses. It
has not prepared to vindicate our commercial rights upon the Ocean, where alone
they are assailed; nor has it permitted the merchant to indemnify himself in any
measure for the loss of that commerce which is interrupted, by a participation in that
which is left. But by a strange and infatuated policy, under the pretense of resisting
the invasion of maritime rights, it has debarred its own Citizens from the use of the
Ocean; and professing to avenge the injuries sustained from France and England, it
has aggravated them by its own measures. The Decrees of France, the Edicts of
England, and the Acts of Congress, though intended to counteract each other,
constitute in effect, a triple league for the annihilation of American commerce; and
our own government, as if weary of waiting for a lingering dissolution, hastens to
dispatch the sufferer, by the finishing stroke of a British war.
Had the policy of government been inclined towards resistance to the pretensions of
the belligerents, by open war, there could be neither policy, reason, or justice in
singling out Great Britain as the exclusive object of hostility. If the object of war is
merely to vindicate our honor, why is it not declared against the first aggressor? If
the object is defence and success, why is it to be waged against the adversary most
able to annoy, and least likely to yield? Why, at the moment when England explicitly
declares her Orders in Council repealed whenever France shall rescind her Decrees,
is the one selected for an enemy, and the other courted as a conqueror? These
inquiries lead us into contemplations too painful to indulge, and too serious to
express....
But under the present circumstances, there will be...no chance for success, no hope
of national glory, no prospect but of a war against Britain, in aid of the common
enemy of the human race; and in the end an inglorious peace, in which our ally will
desert our interest, and act in concert with our enemy, to shackle and restrain the
commerce of our infant empire, by regulations in which they will find a common
interest....
Therefore Resolved, That under existing circumstances, the inhabitants of this Town
most sincerely deprecate a war with Great Britain, as extremely injurious to the
interests and happiness of the people, and peculiarly so, as it necessarily tends to an
alliance with France, thereby threatening the subversion of their liberties and
independence. That an offensive war against Great Britain alone would be manifestly
unjust; and that a war against both the belligerent powers would be an extravagant
undertaking, which is not required by the honour or interest of the nation.
The War of 1812: The United States Was Woefully Unprepared for War
Digital History ID 171
Author: Benjamin Rush
Date:1812
Annotation:
The United States was woefully unprepared for war. The army consisted of fewer
than 7000 soldiers; the navy of less than 20 vessels.
The American strategy called for a three-pronged invasion of Canada and heavy
harassment of British shipping. The attack on Canada, however, was a disastrous
failure. At Detroit, 2000 American soldiers surrendered to a much smaller British and
Indian force. An attacked across the Niagara River, near Buffalo, New York, resulted
in 900 American prisoners of war when the New York State militia refused to provide
support. Along Lake Champlain, a third army retreated into U.S. territory after failing
to cut undefended British supply lines. By the end of 1812, British forces controlled
key forts in the Old Northwest, including Detroit and Fort Dearborn, the future site of
Chicago.
In this excerpt, Benjamin Tallmadge (1754-1835), who had served as a colonel
during the Revolution and as an agent for the Ohio Company, a land acquisition
company, comments on the U.S. army's deplorable condition.
Document:
The House have passed a Bill raising the wages of Privates in the Army to Eight
Dollars, & the non commissioned Officers accordingly--It also authorizes the
Enlistment of Minors...& secures from arrest Debtors of any magnitude or Amo[un]t
who will fly to the American Standard, as recently Criminals were protected by the
hors of the altar....
Our Northern & Western Armies seem to be doomed to misfortunate and Disgrace.
The New England Threat of Secession
Digital History ID 4130
Date:1813
Annotation: Newspaper article
Document: Columbian Centinel, 13 January 1813
North of the Delaware, there is among all who do not bask or expect to bask in the
Executive sunshine but one voice for Peace. South of that river, the general cry is
"Open war, O peers!" There are not two hostile nations upon earth whose views of
the principles and polity of a perfect commonwealth, and of men and measures, are
more discordant than those of these two great divisions. There is but little of
congeniality or sympathy in our notions or feelings; and this small residuum will be
extinguished by this withering war.
The sentiment is hourly extending, and in these Northern States will soon be
universal, that we are in a condition no better in relation to the South than that of a
conquered people. We have been compelled without the least necessity or occasion
to renounce our habits, occupations, means of happiness, and subsistence. We are
plunged into a war, without a sense of enmity, or a perception of sufficient
provocation; and obliged to fight the battles of a Cabal which, under the sickening
affectation of republican equality, aims at trampling into the dust the weight,
influence, and power of Commerce and her dependencies. We, whose soil was the
hotbed and whose ships were the nursery of Sailors, are insulted with the hypocrisy
of a devotedness to Sailors' rights, and the arrogance of a pretended skill in
maritime jurisprudence, by those whose country furnishes no navigation beyond the
size of a ferryboat or an Indian canoe. We have no more interest in waging this sort
of war, at this period and under these circumstances, at the command of Virginia,
than Holland in accelerating her ruin by uniting her destiny to France. We resemble
Holland in another particulat. The officers and power of government are engrossed
by executive minions, who are selected on account of their known infidelity to the
interest of their fellow citizens, to foment divisions and to deceive and distract the
people whom they cannot intimidate. The land is literally taken from its Old
Possessors and given to strangers. The Cabinet has no confidence in those who enjoy
the confidence of this people, and on the other hand the solid mass of the talents
and property of this community is wholly unsusceptible of any favorable impressions
or dispositions towards an Executive in whose choice they had no part, and by whom
they feel that they shall be, as they always have been, degraded and marked as
objects of oppression and resentment. The consequence of this state of things must
then be, either that the Southern States must drag the Northern States farther into
the war, or we must drag them out of it; or the chain will break. This will be the
"imposing attitude" of the next year. We must no longer be deafened by senseless
clamors about a separation of the States. It is an event we do not desire, not
because we have derived advanages from the compact, but because we cannot
foresee or limit the dangers or effects of revolution. But the States are separated in
fact, when one section assumes an imposing attitude, and with high hand perseveres
in measures fatal to the interests and repugnant to the opinions of another section,
by dint of a geographical majority.
The War of 1812
Digital History ID 181
Author: Ephraim Hubbard Foster
Date:1814
Annotation:
In 1813, the United States suffered new failures. In January, an American army
advancing toward Detroit was defeated and captured in the swamps west of Lake
Erie. In April, Americans staged a raid on what is now Toronto, where they set fire to
the two houses of the provincial parliament. This act brought British retaliation in the
burning of Washington, D.C. Only a naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in
September 1813 raised American spirits.
In early 1814, prospects for an American victory dimmed. In the Spring, Britain
defeated Napoleon in Europe, freeing 18,000 battle-tested British troops to invade
the United States. The British launched three separate invasions: in upstate New
York, the Chesapeake Bay, and New Orleans. Outnumbered more than three to one,
American forces repelled Britain's northern invasion at Niagara and Lake Champlain.
In a second attempt to invade the United States, Britain landed 4000 soldiers on the
Chesapeake Bay coast. This force then marched on Washington, where untrained
soldiers lacking uniforms and standard equipment protected the capital. In August
1814, the British humiliated the nation by capturing and burning Washington, D.C.
Britain's next objective was Baltimore. To reach the city, British warships had to pass
the guns of Fort McHenry, manned by 1000 American soldiers. British warships
began a 25-hour bombardment of the fort, but the Americans repulsed the attack
with only four soldiers killed and 24 wounded. One observer, Francis Scott Key
(1779-1843), a young lawyer detained on a British ship, was so moved by the
American victory that he wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner," the song
destined to become the country's national anthem, on the back of an envelope.
The country still faced severe threats in the South. In 1813, the Creek Indians,
encouraged by the British, attacked American settlements in present-day Alabama
and Mississippi. In one incident known as the "Massacre at Fort Mims," near Mobile,
553 American men, women, and children were killed. Frontiersmen from Georgia,
Mississippi, and Tennessee, led by Major General Andrew Jackson (1767-1845),
retaliated and succeeded in defeating the Creeks in March 1814 at the Battle of
Horseshoe Bend. The following letter, by Tennessee Senator Ephraim Hubbard Foster
(1795?-1854), refers to both the massacre and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
Document:
I should not have this soon thrown myself in your presence but that had not the
glorious and transporting news of the victory of the 27th attained by the
unconquerable arms of Tennessee reached us yesterday evening. I hasten my friend
to lay the account before you, that your heart may feel all the pleasant sensations,
my own does at this moment. How pleasing is the thought, that while in the North
everything means the face of discomforture, & disgrace, the American colours wave
triumphant in the South. While [Generals] Wilkinson, Hampton, & Harrison are either
lying inactive, or moving to no purpose but to there shame, the great & immortal
Jackson, leads the valiant & daring sons of Tennessee to victory & to glory.
More than once has he laid the savage beneath the rod of his victory. More than
once he made the mistaken beings feel the valor of his arms.... Behold, behold, my
dear friend behold the blow he struck 27th March. [The battle that effectively ended
the Creek War] More than 800 prostrate Indians atone for the loss of the brave
Major Montgomery & his dead fellow soldiers. More than 2000 atone for the
slaughter at Fort Mims and I am transported beyond conception. Did you ever read
of the like. Will the like ever take place again. Yes. Yes. Headed by the Genl. the true
Genl. Jackson. Our soldiers must conquer. The 27th of March, will ever be a jubilee
in the annuls of Tennessean warfare....
Before this time General Jackson has set out for the Hickory ground.... In a few days
more we hope to hear he has added another plume to the name of Tennessee. May
the great gods continue unto him his former successes. May he go on conquering &
to conquer until not one enemy shall dare show himself in the south.
I am somehow so elevated above myself that I can not talk on any other subject. My
Graham, I am proud of being a Tennessean. Yes I am.
The Hartford Convention
Digital History ID 199
Author: James Monroe
Date:1815
Annotation:
Many Federalists believed that the War of 1812 was fought to aid Napoleon in his
struggle against Britain. Some opposed the war by refusing to pay taxes, boycotting
war loans, and refusing to furnish troops. In December 1814, delegates from New
England gathered in Hartford, Connecticut, where they recommended a series of
constitutional amendments to restrict Congress' power to wage war, regulate
commerce, and admit new states. The delegates also supported a one-term
presidency (to break the grip of Virginians on the office) and abolition of the ThreeFifths Compromise, and talked of seceding if they did not get their way. In this
message, Madison's Secretary of State, James Monroe, expresses concern over the
Hartford Convention and fear that New England Federalists might seize the federal
armory at Springfield, Massachusetts.
Document:
Confidential
...The proceedings at Hartford have excited much anxiety, as likely to embarrass the
measures of the Government, and by the countenance they have afforded the enemy
to prolong the war, if they should not lead into worse consequences. General
Swartout has been authorised to take measures, in case they should be necessary,
for the security of the arms at Springfield [Massachusetts].... I trust that any evil
which may be contemplated, however great, will be defeated.
Peace with Britain
Digital History ID 4129
Date:1815
Annotation: Newspaper articles after the War of 1812.
Document: New York Evening Post, 13 February 1815
On Saturday evening, about eight o'clock, arrived the British sloop of war, Favorite,
bringing Mr. Carroll, one of the Secretaries attached to the American legation, bearer
of a treaty of PEACE between the United States and Great Britain. He came not
unexpected to us: Ever since the receipt of the October dispatches, we have
entertained and expressed, as our readers know, but one opinion. A critical
examination of those dispatches convinced us that the negociations would, nay, must
terminate in the restoration of a speedy peace; and the speech of the Prince Regent,
in November, contained an implied assurance that the preliminaries waited for little
else than the form of signatures. It has come, and the public expressions of
tumultuous joy and gladness that spontaneously burst forth from all ranks and
degrees of people on Saturday evening, without stopping to enquire the conditions,
evinced how really sick at heart they were, of a war that threatened to wring from
them the remaining means of subsistence, and of which they could neither see the
object nor the end. The public exhilaration shewed itself in the illumination of most of
the windows in the lower part of Broadway and the adjoining streets in less than
twenty minutes after Mr. Carroll arrived at the City Hotel. The street itself was
illuminated by lighted candles, carried in the hands of a large concourse of the
populace; the city resounded in all parts with the joyful cry of a peace! a peace! and
it was for nearly two hours difficult to make one's way through unnumbered crowds
of persons of all descriptions, who came forth to see and to hear and to rejoice. In
the truth, the occasion called for the liveliest marks of sincere congratulations.
Never, in our opinion, has there occurred so great a once since we became an
independent nation. Expresses of the glad tidings were instantly dispatched in all
directions, to Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Albany, &c., &c. The country will now
be convinced that the federalists were right in the opinion they have ever held, that
during the despotism of Bonaparte, no peace was ever to be expected for their own
country, and therefore they publickly rejoiced at his downfall, and celebrated the
restoration of the Bourbons. Men of property, particularly, should felicitate
themselves, for they may look back upon the perils they have just escaped with the
same sensations that the passenger in a ship experiences, when, driving directly on
the breakers through the blunders of an ignorant pilot, he is unexpectedly snatched
from impending destruction by a sudden shifting of the wind. Fears were entertained,
that it was really intended, like losing and desperate gamblers, to find a pretence for
never paying the public debt, in the magnitude of the sum: that a spunge would be
employed in the last resort, as the favorite instrument to wipe off all scores at once.
A principle nearly bordering on this, was, not long ago, openly avowed on the floor of
Congress by a member from Virginia. Neither is it a small cause of congratulation
that we are now to be delivered from that swarm of leeches that have so long
fastened upon the nation, and been sucking its blood. Their day is over. Let the
nation rejoice.
What the terms of the peace are, we cannot tell; they will only be made known at
Washington, by the dispatches themselves. But one thing I will venture to say now
and before they are opened, and I will hazard my reputation upon the correctness of
what I say, that when the terms are disclosed, it will be found that the government
have not by this negociation obtained one single avowed object for which they
involved the country in this bloody and expensive war.
National Advocate, 17 February 1815
Cold and unfeeling must be that man who thinks we have gained nothing by the
present war. If there exists such an animal in the bosom of our country, suspect him
- "he is fit for stratagems, spoils and treasons." What is now our national character?
Ask the admiring and astonished world. Have we gained nothing, then, for which we
entered into this contest? The objects of the war were confined within a narrow
compass.
To assert and defend our national rights: and to rescue, as it were, by its locks, the
drowning honor of the nation.
Those rights have been manfully asserted, and most gloriously defended. On that
element where they were more immediately assailed, we have humbled and appalled
the haughty foe. Who is now mistress of the seas? Who waves, triumphantly, the
trident of old ocean? Who is it, that sailing on the deep scorns to strike its flag to an
equal force? Let the Guerriere, the Java, the Macedonian, the Frolic, the Boxer: nay,
let Britannia's whole fleets, that proudly rode on the "mountain wave" of lakes Erie
and Champlain, answer these questions. We have, then, not only asserted and
defended our rights; but we have most severely chastised an arrogant foe, who
dared to invade them: This object, therefore, has been accomplished by the war.
Have we done nothing more? A peace of 30 years had deprived us not only of
military science, but even of military ardor. This war has awakened a patriotic flame,
and called forth, in volunteers, in the field of battle, the friends of our country, and
its government. A soldier-like emulation has pervaded their ranks. Military science
has been extensively disseminated among them. Trembling and astounded, the
veterans of lord Wellington have acknowledged its effects. With proud and exulted
feelings will our children's children, repeat the deeds of valor performed by our
heroes at the battles of Chippewa and of Erie; of York and of Orleans. We have thus
proved ourselves worthy the rich inheritance, freedom and independence,
bequeathed us by our fathers; and for "our children we have preserved it unsullied."
This object, therefore, has been accomplished by the war.
Have we done nothing more? The tools of royalty have never ceased prating against
the imbecility and weakness of republics. They have contended, that, however well
calculated a republican government might be for peace - war would inevitably
produce intestine commotions, and all the direful consequences which were to follow,
have been predicted with the most positive certainty. Where are these false prophets
now? The republic is safe. Surrounded by internal traitors; a whole section of our
country basely devoted to the cause of the enemy. We have entered into a conflict
with one of the most powerful nations of the earth; destitute, as the editor of the
Evening Post has often told us, of men, of money, of the munitions of war, and of
military science, and yet, before three years have rolled away, we have beaten and
discomfited that enemy by sea and by land; and in the midst of his vauntings and
boastings, have humbled him in dust and ashes, and thus strengthened and
consolidated our empire. This object, therefore, has been accomplished by the war.
Have we done nothing more? Our enemies were flattered with the hope that the
people would prove traitors to themselves; that deprived of employment, and
bleeding under the wounds which the war would necessarily inflict upon them, they
would be unwilling to bear additional taxation. But the people have been tried and
found faithful: they have indignantly spurned the syren voice of royalty and its
degraded minions. They have demonstrated to the world that they are republicans in
principle; that they are the proper conservators of their own rights; and that they
merit the blessings of such a government as they now enjoy. This object, therefore,
has been accomplished by the war.